The Conrad Maldives Rangali is full of over-the-top dining experiences, but perhaps the most extravagant is Ithaa. Ithaa is an underwater restaurant situated five meters below the surface where you can dine surrounded by views of coral and fish. Options for dining include a four-course set menu lunch, a seven-course set menu dinner, or a mid-morning champagne hour.

As you might imagine, the prices for this once in a lifetime experience are steep. The champagne hour will set you back $85, lunch is $220 per person, while dinner will run you a cool $330 per person (and these prices are all before taxes and fees which are an extra 22%).

We decided to take a middle of the road approach and have lunch at Ithaa. Note that reservations are required, but on the day we dined only three out of the seven tables were full.

The Conrad Maldives Rangali has more than a dozen different restaurants and dining experiences, and as you might expect for such a luxurious island resort, none of them are cheap. We tried six different restaurants and dining experiences during our recent stay, and we came away with a few favorites that stood out from the rest.

Here we outline our opinions on the restaurants at which we dined, and which meals we think were worth the splurge.

During our trip to the Maldives, the first island we visited was very close to Male international airport. We chose this one for a number of reasons, with the two most important being it was just a 15-minute boat ride away (perfect after our 40+ hours of travel) and also because it is home to a Hilton hotel (where we paid on points).

This is the Hilton SAii Lagoon on the island chain we refer to as Crossroads (named for the marina on-site). While this island itself was a bit, well, odd, we did have a pretty good stay all around.